


The Hardest Part 2/?

by naienko



Series: The Hardest Part [2]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-22
Updated: 2009-05-22
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naienko/pseuds/naienko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a bridge between two worlds is difficult when one of them is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest Part 2/?

**Author's Note:**

> This vignette, too, appears at a specific point in the movie, which viewers will recognise. I wrote this using the assumption that, although Spock and his father were long distant in the prime reality, the destruction of Vulcan erased much of that animosity in favour of mutual grief.  
> I don't write sex nearly as well as I do romance, so readers will have to forgive me the fade-to-black.

His father's voice snapped his sanity back. Something beyond outrage coloured that voice, almost ... regret? The voice of logic, shoved to the back of his mind by the eruption of anger, wondered why Sarek had waited so long -- why everyone had waited so long to intervene.

Shock?

No more than his own, thickly overlaid with pulsing rage. His hand, clenched around Kirk's throat. " ... you _never_ loved her," echoed in his ears, ringing in the silence, broken only by Kirk's rasping breath. The rage, too reminiscent of the _plak tow_ , drained from his body, leaving him cold, hollow inside. A hollow too familiar by far. Denial had filled it, control had filled it, duty had filled it.

Until Kirk smashed them all, sauntering back onto the Enterprise bare hours after he himself had removed the cocky ... bastard, yes, bastard from the bridge, from the ship, from his life. Even then ... even then, control might have held. Duty might have held. If only Kirk had not put his fingers directly on the raw wound of grief, only bandaged, not healed.

Every soft word Kirk had spoken had slashed at control, bringing memories barely a day old back to the surface ... _her_ , vanishing before his eyes; his home, his heart, crumbling away into darkness, not even dust remaining to mark _her_ passing.

To mark _her_ \-- _their_ \-- grave.

'What am I become?' He met Sarek's eyes, crushed by the weight of disappointment, so easily read by a fellow Vulcan -- ' _half-Vulcan_ , he thought savagely, 'I cannot claim to be Vulcan now' -- in that beloved, still face. He could not meet anyone else's eyes, though he felt them all.

A Human would flush under the scrutiny. He did not. That much, at least, remained to him. He kept his head ducked, iron-hard control returning, shame replacing shock replacing rage. His stomach churned with the aftermath of adrenaline dropping into his bloodstream, fingers trembling. Control.

True control was gone. The best he hoped for now was merely to restrain emotional expression ... or at the very least, not to throw up before he returned to his quarters. He turned to McCoy. "Doctor, I am no longer ... fit for duty. I hereby relinquish my command, based on the fact that I have been ... emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log."

Glancing neither to one side nor the other, he made his way to the lift, wondering if his legs would carry him that far. A presence, familiar, beloved, brought his eyes up as no other -- save one -- would have. Nyota said something, some word of compassion, his name, but he refused to comprehend.

Blindly, fighting to reclaim control, he traversed the well-known corridors, occasionally putting a hand up to the wall. Its coolth soothed raw nerves, raw emotions. The truth of his father's long-ago assertion, writ large in his own soul.

Footsteps echoed behind him, though he refused to turn and see. Perhaps Kirk would attempt to return the favour. Let him. He had nothing more to lose.

\--

He had slumped down on the divan, giving over physical control for the moment, before he realised there was someone else in his quarters with him.

Nyota. It would be no other. Who else on the Enterprise would feel compelled to come to him now? He pushed the thought of his father away. That comfort, he had forfeited, first with his entry into Starfleet, then the loss of _her_ and finally, now, with this wholly unVulcan public loss of all control. He should be lucky to ever see his father again.

But that thought brought him right back to the sequence on the bridge, which brought back Kirk's accusations, which brought back ... 

The spiral of self-recrimination, doubt, guilt, flashback ... pain ... sucked him in as inexorably as the singularity had drawn in Vulcan. He barely felt the touch of Nyota's hands on his arms; his body seemed distant, unfamiliar. "Spock?" she whispered, trying to look in his eyes.

He twisted away, unable to bear the thought of sullying her. 'Everything I touch is destroyed.'

"Spock!" More urgent now, her tone. "Spock, come back. You have to come back. Come back to me." Pleading, anguished.

"Please ... " he whispered.

"Come on, Spock," she coaxed, "please what? What do you need?" Her voice became a lifeline, falling down into the dark spaces of his soul. Logic, trained into subconsciousness, began to reassert itself. 'It _is_ a fantastical image.'

The subtle whoosh of the door drew both their gazes. Sarek paused, framed in the entryway. His eyes flicked once to Spock before fixing on Nyota. Her eyes and his locked for a long moment before Sarek withdrew, something in his face subtly lightened.

She turned back, wrapping long fingers around his wrists. "What do you need?" she whispered again.

Abruptly, Spock was desperately, wrenchingly tired of the Vulcan way. He had believed it would allow him to retain the control he needed to perform his duty, and all it had taken was one arrogant Iowan to prove him wrong. "Hold me," he murmured, the desire to weep crimping his mouth. "Just ... hold me."

Almost before the words left his mouth, her arms were tight around his shoulders, his face buried in her neck. He breathed, fitting his arm to the curve of her waist. Her hand smoothed his hair, over and over. Gradually he became calmer, aware of her lips pressed against his ear.

Nyota drew back, looking into his eyes. "Spock?" A world of questions underscored her tone.

"Yes," he replied, and fitted his mouth to hers. This, he remembered vaguely, was a Human response to grief, the need for touch. This, _she_ would understand.

Nyota's hands framed his face, and he pulled upward, dragging her by dint of his greater strength into his lap. The weight of her woke further needs, further desires. His kisses grew more demanding, her responses more enthusiastic.

A world was gone. Very well, they would begin anew.

\--

Nyota wished to stay, but he shook his head, brushing a strand of black hair away from her eyes. The situation was unusual -- unprecedented, even -- but there was no logic in the whole bridge staff taking on Kirk's flagrant disregard of rules.

Besides, there was a place he needed to go. Alone. 

Some measure of calm, of control, restored, he gazed at the transporter pad where _she_ had not reappeared. Gone. _She_ was gone. He had to accept that. Had to regain control.

But ... gone.

"Speak your mind, Spock." His father's voice did not interrupt his reverie, merely threaded into it.

A dozen responses crowded to mind. He limited himself to, "That would be unwise."

Immediately, "What is necessary is never unwise."

He struggled for words to express the war taking place inside him: love versus anger, duty versus revenge. "I am as conflicted as I once was as a child."

His father paused, then replied, "You will always be a child of two worlds. I am grateful for this." A longer pause. He added, "And for you."

Spock turned to meet his father's grave gaze, astonishment overriding all else for a short moment. So unequivocal an expression of his father's emotions meant far more than merely the words themselves.

Perhaps here, too, his father could help, as then, guide him to be as he was. Half-Vulcan. Half-Human.

"I feel anger for the one who took Mother's life. An anger I cannot control." Spock's voice shook with effort, with grief, with pain.

Sarek approached, slow and thoughtful. "I believe ... she would say, do not try to." The stillness stretched, taut. "You asked me once, why I married your mother." Sarek's mouth worked, and his eyes shone with some powerful emotion. His calm voice fell, rich with rare expression of feeling. "I married her because I loved her."

He searched his father's face, and saw there a blessing. Something more eased inside him. Sarek did not deplore Spock's grief, his love, his anger.

Spock breathed deeply. He _could_ feel. Control was important. Duty was important.

Love was all.

He followed in his father's footsteps.


End file.
